Most of today's mothers and fathers are caring and concerned parents, looking for the best possible advice to help them raise happy, competent, caring children. In hopes of accomplishing this they turn for guidance to family physicians, family members, television personalities, newspaper columnists, advice books and the lady down the street who has five kids and they all seem normal. Because parents worry, the subject of parenting is big business in America. Entire magazines are devoted to child rearing issues. Bookstore shelves are filled with treatises on topics ranging from toilet training in less than a day (as if this is important to accomplish), to play therapy (just in case toilet training in less than a day doesn't work out.) Newspapers throughout the country assign columnists to the subject. Cable networks offer advice on contemporary issues of raising children, and television talk show hosts fill endless hours debating parenting methods and techniques.

     Unfortunately, much of the counsel offered to parents is based upon subjective opinion, conjecture, and the personal background, beliefs and attitudes of the "expert" making the recommendations. Instructions are generally narrow and often constructed on little or no scientific evidence. While some of the counsel presented is helpful, much of it is inaccurate or silly, and sometimes it is downright harmful. Because I have long been troubled by the misinformation being disseminated to the nation's mothers and fathers, I have written Your Kids, Their Lives: A Parent's Guide to Raising Happy, Competent, Caring Children in an attempt to steer parents away from these false and sometimes harmful conclusions, and direct them toward ideas and techniques that have proven to be sound.

     I am a psychologist, a teacher, and a parent. The psychologist and teacher part of me—30 years of teaching college-level child development and parenting courses and three college textbooks published, one specifically on parenting—led me into the heart of parenting research, in a quest to uncover the most authoritative work conducted over the past 40 years in the area of parent-child relations. The parent part of me (I have a son) was intent on understanding the complex, interrelating forces that affect the direction childrearing takes, so that I could be aware of these influences as I guided my child in a direction that would put him on a path to a successful life.

     Among the experiences that influenced me most to study and write about parenting were my early career days working in a mental hospital for children and my years as a family therapist, during which I saw first hand the effects, for better or worse, of parenting. I have been especially influenced by my former students, many of whom wanted to be good parents but did not have the skills to do so. The changes they made after taking my parenting classes, and their letters of appreciation describing how well their children are doing, pushed me to share with other parents what I have learned during four decades of intense study and work.

To read more of the introduction, purchase Your Kids, Their Lives: A Parent's Guide to Raising Happy, Competent, Caring Children today!